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- Serena gocke
- BBC News Arabic
Iraqi Jihan Hachem drinks her coffee in a cafe in Iraq, but complains about her inability to enjoy moments of privacy in public places. For her six million followers, she is one of the stars of the world of social networks. .
Jihan admits that she is very happy with the attention of her followers: “Wherever I go, people get to know me and come and take a picture with me.”
But sometimes it can “go beyond loving and following to bullying,” Jihan explains.
Jihan, as the phrase circulated in the media, is one of the major influences in the social media market, originally working as a makeup artist, but has become a target for marketing big brand products.
Jihan belongs to the category of mega influencers or the stars of influencers and influencers with more than one million followers, and it is the most requested category in business promotion, because an influencer in this category can receive one million dollars. for an advertisement or promotion.
Influencers or influencers and content creators are terms that have become popular in recent years with the world spending more time on social media sites and relying on their sites in most of their business, ranging from entertainment and from entertainment to obtaining financial information. transactions as well as purchases.
Currently, the influencer plays an important and important role in shaping public opinion and tastes. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of influencers who specialize in various fields including fashion, fashion, makeup, nutrition, science, and more. also a complete influencer who can share a variety of content and does not prefer to limit himself to specific content.
Not all of them necessarily have practical or academic experience in their field, but despite this, they enjoy a large fan base and social media followers, typically ranging from thousands of followers to millions.
The psychology of influence
According to Dr Peter Andrews, senior lecturer at the University of Hull in Britain, throughout history people have been influenced by each other. The concept of influencer is not entirely new, as the term was just an adjective applied to leaders and opinion makers in various disciplines.
As to why we follow and love one person over another, it goes back to the so-called “self-image” which makes us determine our worth by comparing ourselves to others to whom we aspire, according to Dr. Andrews. . These people “have the power of reference, in the sense that they are a reference and a role model for us as we think about what we aspire to be, which social media influencers generally have.”
While the concept of influencer is not new, the term has evolved from an adjective into a profession that can generate fantastic financial returns and a title that competes for the bearer of social media giants.
Giants race
Facebook announced last July that it had allocated a billion dollars to attract content creators and influencers, but Facebook was not a pioneer in this step that YouTube and Tik Tok have taken before by allocating amounts competitors for the same purpose.
These platforms do not provide funds to support influencers in the form of a donation. According to Dr Andrews, these influencers make up about 75% of public content on social media platforms and without this content “sites will be limited to certain conversations between people and photo sharing. . ”
Lack of content is a disaster for these sites which will gradually lose their visitors and therefore brands will not use them as platforms to promote their products which also means losing money through advertisements.
Social media is not the only one competing to attract influencers, different brands are also aware of the value of influencers and the profits they can derive from them.
While direct digital promotion on social media sites may be more effective than traditional means, studies indicate that around 40% of people worldwide use ad blockers while browsing the internet. This is where the importance of the influencer lies according to Dr. Andrews, because these are the people who are looking for the influencer and looking for them to see their content, and often they trust them and try to emulate them, and they don’t try to avoid its ads like they do with direct promotions. This way, “brands actually have more effective marketing and lower costs.”
But not all influencers are the same, some of them get huge sums of money up to a million dollars in exchange for promoting a product, and some of them promote for free.
The percentage of profit the influencer gets varies depending on the size and value of the business they promote and the number of their followers.Influencers are generally divided into four types in terms of number:
Regardless of how much money and profits investors can make, the fame they have can sometimes be a double-edged sword. Jihan, for example, is subjected to “a lot of trouble and negative comments, in addition to cyberbullying.”
However, these topics aren’t the only tax the influencer pays. According to Kuwaiti Ghadeer Al-Sultan, who has more than two million Instagram followers, “Life has become a permanent job, and all of this is making people happy, but people are an unattainable goal.”
Ghadeer believes her spontaneity and straightforwardness is the reason people follow her, and many experts agree that the most important characteristic of social media influencers is their closeness to people and their credibility, unlike to other celebrities.
It seems that the proximity of the influencer to his followers and sharing the smallest details of his day with them pays off. By browsing the accounts of many Arab content creators, you can find videos with headlines such as “I wore red for a whole day” or “I worked in a barber shop” or even “Young people. YouTubers have decided to marry me “has thousands of views, comments, likes, etc.
Simple headlines and events that most people go through and may not give them importance in real life, but these questions seem to have a different impact on the hearts of social media site pioneers when the influencer than they follow the sharing, and there is no doubt that the phenomenon of influencers has imposed itself on a whole generation who sees that influencers are like stars and aspire to be like them. Once you type in the word “influencer” on search engines, you will find an unlimited number of results that will guide you through “7 Steps to Becoming an Informer” and “How to Become an Informant on Social Media” and the like.
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